Rescuezilla – The Ultimate Backup & Cloning Software – Free, Open Source & Always Will Be!

Cloning your system drive to a newer and bigger drive or taking backup images has never been easier thanks to Rescuezilla and it works for both Windows and Linux systems. It's free and open source software, meaning you never have to worry about the developers implementing restrictions or taking features away to force you into a paid license. Not only is it free as in free beer, but it’s also free as in free speech!

These are affiliate links where I earn a small commission for purchases at no extra cost to you.
This is the easiest way to help the channel, thank you!

Donations

Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:51 Download and boot
02:50 Cloning a Windows drive
04:40 Expanding a Windows partition
07:29 Backup Linux drive to an image file
10:52 Restoring an image
12:01 Expanding a Linux partition
12:54 Outro

[PhazerTech]

If you're having issues booting into Rescuezilla, try selecting "graphical fallback mode" instead.
Also make sure you restart out of Windows instead of shutting down if you're trying to clone or backup. Shutting down Windows can put it in a hibernation state and prevents it from being cloned.

[ethansight]

Thank you! Just successfully switched out my m.2 drive in the ol thinkpad. Rescuezilla froze on first attempt at 3%, tried it again with "rescue" checked and it cloned after 6 hours. Windows had no trouble booting up! I did run sfc /scannow after and it said there were some files it had to replace. One more thing for anyone attempting this, I couldn't extend the partition in rescuezilla because bitlocker had encrypted everything. Something you can turn off in windows beforehand! In my case I turned off bitlocker on the new drive and used a third party to move the recovery partition to the end. Then I used windows own tool to extend my c drive to the full 2tb. Good luck!

[t_srossuck_stout]

Thank you so much for the video. We used Rescuezilla and BalenaEtcher to move our Windows 10 OS from a 512GB SSD to a larger 2TB SSD, and it worked a treat. No dramas, just followed your instructions! Really appreciated your efforts to make things clear and simple.

[UfochapChap]

I'm a total idiot and I managed to do this very easily thanks to this video. Brilliant thank you very much

[esra_erimez]

This video was really very helpful. I've always struggled with clonezilla's user interface and had no idea about rescuezilla. Thanks for the great video!!!

[davesmith]

This a really good video. I had no idea that Rescuezilla was so versatile, thank you.

[KarmaGachu]

With Macrium Reflect Free end of life this will be its replacement, thank you.

[SusanAmberBruce]

Hey! I want to thank you for your video, I just cloned Windows 11 from 500 G byte M.2 drive to 1 T byte M.2 drive, it was easy-peasy, now I got room for more games Hara!

[pestpatroller]

I just cloned my hdd( Linux Mint 21.2) to a new 1TB ssd and everything worked as advertised...except resizing the partition afterwards. GParted (on the Rescuezilla USB) saw the unallocated space but would not resize the partition. Luckily, Disks was also on the Rescuezilla USB and that got the job done.

[mdd]

9:19 It should be noted that as imaging merely copies/compresses the utilized space of the main drive, the destination drive does not need to be larger than the source drive, but, need only be large enough to save the default compressed image afterward; I just imaged my 2 TB 990 Pro WIn10 install w/ 330 GB of used space onto a 250 GB image on a 1 TB external USB drive.

[jwren]

Excellent clear & concise video. Thank you.

[CCoburn]

Just a tip. Starting your videos with a BLAST of noise is probably not the best idea. I'm sure you like it, but people don't usually watch these videos in bars. Often they watch videos at work or in places where they don't want to disturb others. Having a video come on with such a high volume of noise in such a situation is not helpful. All that being said, the content of your video was good. I wish you luck in the future of your channel.

[dickdomain]

Super nice detailed video, thank you so much!!

[jitendergupta]

Very well explained. Thanks. Looking forward for more tutorials from your end.

[yountune]

OMG! YouTube algorithm led me to this page! It did right by me!

[podroomstudio]

Great video. Straight to the point.... clear and concise. Thank you.

[MiniMinotaur]

Thanks for this guide, I was able to upgrade my main SSD because of it

[PaulG.x]

It is generally recommended to use the windows disc utility to resize the windows partition

[CHOPPY]

Thank you for the video and detailed explanation 👌🏽

[brockk]

Very clear and informative, great job.
This looks really good for free and open source software, but it is missing a vital (for me) feature that some of the free versions of commercial software have (for now, anyway), namely the ability to open the backup image and read or copy individual files.